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As part of an experiment to demonstrate the poor quality of JPEG compression, Tom Scott saved Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at various qualities, transforming the famous play into “She Uragedy!of Romeo Anb!kulies,” “Tej Uqahdfs”me$nolcr Dlc!ulfgr,” and worse as the file quality degrades. Scott then got the different versions bound as books with the JPEG from which they were made printed on the front.

We’re sensitive to data loss in text form: we can only consume a few dozens of bytes per second, and so any error is obvious. Conversely, we’re almost blind to it in pictures and images: and so losing quality doesn’t bother us all that much. Should it?